The Boy Who Ran Away To Sea

A childhood in the 1950s and '60s among grifters, show girls, and mob enforcers who embraced the boy and made him who he is. 'These stories make for one of the most important and moving American bildungsromans of all time.' --William Boyle, The Southwest Review Roy tells it the way he sees it, shuttled between Chicago to Key West and Tampa, Havana and Jackson MS, usually with his mother Kitty, often in the company of lip-sticked women and fast men. Roy is the muse of Gifford's hardboiled style, a precocious child, watching the grown-ups try hard to save themselves, only to screw up again and again. He takes it all in, every waft of perfume and cigar smoke, every missed opportunity to do the right thing. And then there are the good things too. A fishing trip with Uncle Buck, a mother's love, advice from Rudy, Roy's father: 'Roy means king. Be the king of your own country. Don't depend on anyone to do your thinking for you.' The stories in The Boy Who Ran Away to Sea are together a love